


Pink

by slashmarks



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 11:37:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2149293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/slashmarks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This takes place in the summer between Season Two and Season Three, when Faith's been called and Anne (currently in between using Chantarelle and Lily as names) is in LA. Written for Lucy (clockwork_hart1 on LJ), who requested backstories, lipstick, and alleyways, with no Buffy-bashing or schmoop, for femslash_minis.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Pink

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the summer between Season Two and Season Three, when Faith's been called and Anne (currently in between using Chantarelle and Lily as names) is in LA. Written for Lucy (clockwork_hart1 on LJ), who requested backstories, lipstick, and alleyways, with no Buffy-bashing or schmoop, for femslash_minis.

The hotel room is _sweet_. The bed is so soft Faith sinks into it by inches when she lies down for about five minutes, and there's a mint on the pillow. She bounces up and goes to check out the bathroom, and there's a jacuzzi big enough she could lie down flat on her back and stretch out without hitting the side.  


She grins at herself in the mirror before darting back into the main hotel room, where Diana's setting out paperwork on the desk. She waits for a whole minute – she counts – before asking, “So I guess you're gonna get room service tonight?”

Diana looks up, frowns, and then suddenly smiles. “Do I detect a hint of restlessness in my Slayer?”

“Well...” Faith grins back at her, slow, then all at once finishing, like a shy little kid.

Like the shy little kid she's not, but Diana laughs and reaches for her wallet, so it worked. “Go buy yourself something to eat somewhere more to your liking. I still feel sick from the flight and I'm afraid watching you bounce won't do much for me.”

“What about research?” she asks. She doesn't  _want_ to get stuck in reading out of the musty books Diana's carry on was stuffed with, but now that she's got what she wants she can afford to give up a little time.

But Diana shakes her head. “It can wait until tomorrow, Faith. I won't be of much use until then.” She presses money into Faith's hand. Faith knows better than to count it in front of her. Barely. “Go on, then,” Diana adds, and it's all the prompting Faith needs.

She runs for the door, swiping a room key off of the table by the entrance and sliding it into the back pocket of her pants.

She counts the money in the elevator. A couple of bills makes way more than enough for dinner. She could go shopping, maybe. She could pay cover for a club, but she dressed for Diana for the airport in loose jeans and a slightly baggy T shirt. Not that Diana has ever expressed more than a skeptically tilted eyebrow at Faith's clothing, but she knows she's a little prudish. Not a big fan of watching her minor charge run around in leather. So Faith's nice to her.

And being nice to her is totally worth it, because she's in LA with no chaperone and money in her pocket. She's not quite hungry enough for dinner yet. The plane didn't make  _her_ sick, she stared out the window the whole fucking time, Boston to LA via Dallas, except when she fell asleep, so she pigged out on pizza at LAX before they left.

Instead, she decides to do some patrolling, maybe hit a few vamps. They usually like big cities, Diana told her, cities with murder rates high enough that their feeding goes unnoticed. Which is why there are vampires enough in Boston for Faith to live there most of the time, and why they found plenty when they were in New York City earlier this month, and in Atlanta before that, and Toronto before  _that_ . 

(Toronto had been hell. Not for the mission they'd been sent on, which was a seasonal feeding of some kind of demon with  _nasty_ tentacles and gross but not all that hard, but for getting there. Canada was international travel and Faith didn't even have a school ID let alone her birth certificate let alone a passport. There had been so much fuss over why Faith wasn't going to go ask her mother for it that she'd actually asked if they couldn't just send the  _other_ Slayer, who probably had parents and an education and access to her own legal identity, only to be told that Buffy Summers could Never Abandon The Hellmouth, and then Diana had gotten her a fake that said she was Faith Dormer, Diana's daughter.

A week after that she'd overheard a phone conversation when she was supposed to be asleep and found out that Buffy had skipped out and no one knew where she was and that was why they couldn't send her, and okay, maybe she was wrong about the other Slayer being a spoiled brat, okay.)

She was starting to get kind of bored, debating cutting patrol short and heading to the Mexican restaurant across the street that smelled great, when she heard screaming from a blocked off alley – which sounded like a job up  _her_ alley. So Faith darted across the street, trusting her Slayer strong legs to avoid traffic, almost knocked over a street artist's cart, threw an apology over her shoulder and was over a stack of scrap wood into the alley.

Inside were two vamps cornering a little blond girl. “Show time, boys,” she said, and laughed when one of them looked up just in time for her punch to snap his jaw up. One, two, punch and stake, whirl around to the other one – oops, he had grabbed the girl's arm and was looking to leave.

She grabbed at the pile of wood, got a two by four and threw it like a spear, knock the vampire down and away from his victim, then rushed forward, slamming into his chest and knocking them both into the wall. The vampire was about to say something but she didn't care, she laughed and pulled her second stake from her boot, and he was dust, too.

She bent over, resting her hands on her knees, and just breathed for a minute. Hr heart was pounding, and she was starving, and she was  _alive_ , damn it, alive. Saving people. Not dead by sixteen, not a junkie, but a superhero, and she would never get tired of this rush.

“Um, excuse me?” a small voice asked behind her. “Are you – what just happened?”

She turned and smiled. “Nothing to worry about, you okay?”

“What's your name?” the girl asked instead of answering.

“Faith.” She looked the girl over. A little older than she'd thought at first, probably around Faith's age herself. Nice tight jeans, flowing, almost transparent blouse that didn't hide her tits or the way her skin was tight across her ribs for anything, painfully bright pink lipstick, and sort of wispy long blond hair.

“I'm – I'm,” the girl seemed to hesitate, “Hope.”

“Nice name,” Faith said, and grinned. Wispy and scared and skinny and all too familiar. If she had dark hair and a little different style, Faith might be looking at herself a year ago.

Which gave her a thought. “Want to go out to eat with me?”

“I – are you sure?”

“Yep. I got money enough for two, and I'm all alone. Do you like Mexican?”

“I  _love_ Mexican,” Hope said.

They got all the way into the booth and were demolishing their second basket of complimentary chips before Hope asked, “Is this a date?”

“Um.” Faith smothered a chip in salsa and popped it into her mouth to give herself time to think.

Hope was cute and not too much younger than Faith and giving her big, pretty eyes. And the food and money would only take care of one part of the post-Slaying reaction. Why not? Faith swallowed and, “Yeah, sure, if you want it to be. You do want it to be?”

“So you kill vampires,” Hope asked after their orders had come and Faith was diving into a plate of enchiladas. “Are you – are there a lot of people who do this?”

“A few, I guess. You don't seem that surprised.

“I've run into a few before,” Hope said shyly, looking down.

“Wow,” Faith said and winced mentally at herself. “I just – you don't look very, um, strong.”

“Oh, I'm not!” Hope said hastily. “I didn't do anything, there was this girl who saved me. Sort of like you, but she didn't take me out on a date after,” she added and smiled at Faith like she was looking at the damn sun or something.

“You're welcome,” Faith said awkwardly. “Um, say, do you know somewhere we can go tonight? I just got into town.”

“Oh, sure! I mean, it's just a cheap motel room, I've got it for the next week still. I'm sure I'll find something by then.” Hope laughed. “It's sort of a long walk from here, I wasn't planning on being out this late, but you'll protect me, right?”

A couple of hours later, Faith kissed Hope's cheek and got up to try to wash the bright pink lipstick off of her face. She could leave the stuff on her thighs for the shower, Diana wasn't going to be looking there when she got back.


End file.
